Electrically conductive polyacetylene films find application in electronic, electro-optical, and photonic devices. Such films are the simplest polyconjugated organic material which exhibits the properties of electrical conductivity and are often termed "organic metals". The conductivity of polyacetylene can be increased over many orders of magnitude by doping with diverse substances.
The most widely used method for polyacetylene synthesis involves providing acetylene gas over a metal organic catalyst system to polymerize the monomer gas. Other methods involve either the polymerization of acetylene using high-energy activations such as plasma or ring opening metathetical polymerization of complex monomers and catalyst systems. These prior art methods are costly, tedious, and often involve potential explosive risks which make them commercially unattractive.
It would be desirable to synthesize polyacetylene films by a simple and low cost method. The present invention method overcomes the deficiencies of prior art methods described above and provides such a method.